


warm as this river of affection

by mlraven



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Communication, F/M, Family, Family Feels, Feelings, M/M, Multi, marriage proposals, proposing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-10-21 23:26:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10685076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mlraven/pseuds/mlraven
Summary: Three years, seven months, and two days after Rey joins the Resistance; three years, three months, and sixteen days after she sits Finn and Poe down and says they should probably discuss the fact that they’ve been sleeping in the same bed for months; two years, ten months, and twenty days after they exchange I love yous for the first time; and two years, nine months, and six days after they finally (finally) get larger quarters, Rey corners Poe for a chat.Rey gets some advice on proposing to her partners...from her partners.





	warm as this river of affection

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flipflop_diva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/gifts).



> Happy Space Swap 2k17, flipflop_diva! I hope you like the fic, and that I was able to fulfill some of your Rey-centric and ot3 desires. :)
> 
> This fic would not have been finished without the ridiculously timely comments on other fics from two benevolent (clairvoyant?) strangers. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for kicking my ass into gear and getting me to put this onto paper. You guys rock my world. :)
> 
> I would also be remiss if I didn't extend my profuse thanks to the #yuletide IRC channel, for all of their encouragement, help with phrasing, and general awesomeness. You guys are badasses, thank you so much for all your help :)

Three years, seven months, and two days after Rey joins the Resistance; three years, three months, and sixteen days after she sits Finn and Poe down and says they should probably discuss the fact that they’ve been sleeping in the same bed for months; two years, ten months, and twenty days after they exchange I love yous for the first time; and two years, nine months, and six days after they finally (finally) get larger quarters, Rey corners Poe for a chat.

“I hear it’s customary to ask your parents’ permission,” she begins in an undertone, glancing around the intersection of two deserted hallways, brow furrowed.

Poe is used to Rey’s non-sequiturs, and to questions from both of his partners about societal practices, but he’s not sure he understands what’s behind this one.

“What?” he says, leaning against the wall.

Rey grabs his arm and leans in closer. “To ask your partner’s parents, for their hand in marriage.” Her brow wrinkles. “I don’t want his hand, though, or not just his. I want to marry you, too.”

Poe exhales, smoothing a hand over his mouth to smother his grin. He’d learned early that Rey assumes that any amusement around her inexperience is at her expense.

“Ah,” he replies. “Only the most traditional planets still follow that, and typically,” he sighs, looking away, not sure how to handle the eternally-delicate family question, “you need to be able to access your partners’ parents to be able to ask them.”

Rey’s shoulders slump. She releases his arm and slides down the wall to sit next to his feet.

“Oh,” she says, fingers picking at a loose thread from her pants.

“But we could choose stand-in parents for you and Finn,” Poe hastily suggests, trying to wipe the forlorn expression off her face. He lowers himself to the floor and sits, legs crossed, facing her side. “I bet General Organa would be honored to stand in, or Master Luke.”

Rey tilts her head, gazing off down one hallway.

Poe lets her think, respects her need to process things in silence after so long alone in the desert; only the sounds of wind and sand impacting rusty metal for company. His mind wanders to how he’ll tell his father— Shara Bey may have missed knowing Finn and Rey, but Kes Dameron has waited patiently for his son to introduce them.

Maybe they’ll get enough leave to take a trip (All three at the same time? Dream on, flyboy, snipes the voice in his head which sounds uncannily like Han Solo) or maybe, finally, Poe will convince Kes to join them here. Kes didn’t speak to Poe for eight months after he ran off to join the Resistance; terrified that his son would end up scattered across space like his mother. He’d broken the silence eventually, but Kes still refuses to come anywhere near the people who remind him of what he lost.

Poe blinks back to himself in time to see Rey look at him sidelong. 

“Dibs on General Organa,” she says, mischievous smile spreading across her face.

Poe grins back. “I think that’s between you and Finn,” he says, and whacks her on the shoulder. “Hey, maybe you can claim proposer’s prerogative.”

Rey rolls her eyes at him and climbs to her feet. Offering him a hand up, she says, “Now I’ve just got to get started on figuring out how to propose.”

Poe takes her hand and levers himself up, brushing dust off his pants with his free hand. Still holding her hand, his expression softens, the skin around his eyes crinkling up. “I’m sure however you do it, we’ll love it.”

Rey smiles and squeezes Poe’s hand in response. “I know.”

 

 

Rey waits to talk to Finn until the moment seems right.

They’re sitting side-by-side, arms and thighs pressed together, pants rolled up as they kick their feet in a stream. Master Luke and R2 are gone— Luke had smiled from under his beard as he suggested that they stay out for a while longer after their long day of stacking rocks while blindfolded and standing on their hands.

He’d actually winked at Rey as he said it. The next person who says that Master Luke is too wrapped up in the past to live in the real world will be hearing from her, thank you very much.

But she does acknowledge that this is a good opportunity to talk to Finn— it’s peaceful here; the water cool as it swirls around their dusty ankles, leaving their skin shiny as it ebbs.

The quiet is nice too; the sound of wind rustling the tall grasses, of native birds chirping and squawking to each other from neighboring trees. It’s taken Rey a long time to get used to the sounds of this planet, but she aches for them when she goes offworld for more than a few days.

Rey takes a moment to just breathe; the warm, faintly spicy breeze refreshing her almost as much as the cold water on her toes. She takes another breath, and says, “Can we talk?”

Finn twists his head to look at her.

“We can always talk,” he says, nudging her shoulder with his. “You know that.”

She nods, and pauses.

The silence draws on long enough for Finn to start worrying that something is wrong. He’s about to ask when Rey bursts out, “I don’t understand! It was so easy to talk about this with Poe!”

Before Finn can say anything, she continues, “It just came out, and I didn’t have to worry about it for six standard weeks. Why is this so different?”

She turns to him and shoves her face against his neck, burrowing her arms around his torso. She’s much better with physical contact than she was when she first joined the Resistance, but she still has trouble articulating what she needs.

Finn wraps his arms around her, tucks his face against her hair. He breathes in the comforting smell of her musk; hair oil and sweat and the outdoors, mixed with a hint of Poe’s soap, almost dissipated after a long day of training.

He doesn’t press her. He knows that Rey will talk in her own time; that using words was a long-rusted skill before the Resistance, that she frequently wishes she could just push her incorporeal thoughts and feelings into people’s heads instead of having to verbalize them.

Eventually, Rey says haltingly into his neck, “You mean so much to me. You were the first person who worried about me as a person; as a friend. You were the first person who fought for me, who saw value in me beyond what scraps I could harvest. I don’t want to mess this up by saying the wrong thing.”

Finn presses a kiss to her head. “You won’t,” he replies, certain.

She exhales and withdraws her arms from around him, taking one leg out of the water to tuck between them as she turns to face his side. Finn shifts to look at her, offers his hands to hold.

She takes his hands, raises her eyes to meet his and says, voice firm, “I want to marry you. And Poe; all three of us together.” Finn draws in a shaky breath, keeps listening, fingers tightening unconsciously around hers.

Rey continues, “And I understand that weddings are a time for family, but you and I are a bit lacking in that department.” The corner of her mouth quirks up, and she tilts her head. “Our esteemed third half suggested that we ask Master Luke or General Organa to stand in for us, as surrogate parents.”

Her gaze drifts off his face, to a space beyond his shoulder. “But I know that...family units...are a...challenge, for both of us, and I wanted a chance to talk, just the two of us, before anyone else wants us to talk about it.”

From his haze, Finn observes that Rey’s mouth has set, as if she’s bracing herself for his reaction. He forces himself to relax, to draw in a breath and let it back out, until he’s pulled himself together enough to respond.

Sometimes— less frequently as he gets further away from the First Order— Finn is overwhelmed by the lack of rigid structure in his life. When all you know is bound up in titanium control and unflinching displays of force, acclimating to the chaos the Resistance calls its command structure is, to put it lightly, challenging.

When Finn first asked Poe about the Resistance’s information dissemination standards, he’d blinked, then doubled over laughing for longer than Finn felt was really necessary. General Organa, passing by, had whapped Poe on the head with her folder of schematics and told him to play nice with the new recruits.

The lack of organization had only emphasized Finn’s loneliness, until he’d found his way into a bed-sharing arrangement with first Poe, and then Rey. As they coalesced into a unbreakable triumvirate, Finn felt his discomfort ease with the growing understanding that he’d become part of a new, but more solid, structure.

In this moment, facing Rey, one foot in a burbling stream and the other sandwiched between their two bodies, hands sweaty in each other’s grasp, Finn knows that this is where he was always meant to be.

Finn beams at Rey, taking in the setting sun outlining the braided loops of her training hairstyle, its warmth reflected in her dark, slightly worried eyes.

“Of course I want to marry you,” he says, as Rey’s forehead uncreases and she begins to smile. “With or without the people who birthed us.”

Rey exhales, her relief palpable, the mirror of Finn’s irrepressible smile spreading over her face.

“You’re my family,” he finishes simply, squeezing her hands.

And they are— Rey and Poe and BB-8 and the entirety of the Resistance have taken him in, have adopted him and enveloped him with love and support that he didn’t even know existed before Jakku.

Rey leans forward and slides her arms under his for another hug. Sometimes, communication doesn’t require words.

 


End file.
